Projectland

Anyone who has worked in the field in Laos knows well the implementational challenges, contested objectives, and conflicting meanings that government projects bring to the daily life of its diverse people. Ever-deepening understanding of the bumpy road to a market economy and the shady sides of state governance has led to a received wisdom that the revolution is dead, leaving Laos to an awkward post-Socialist future. In Projectland: Life in a Socialist Model Village, Holly High provides an engaging and compelling account of how the larger national project of Socialism is alive and well in the livelihoods, social interactions, and cultural discourses of Ban Kandon, an ethnic Kantu (Katu) village located in Sekong Province of southern Laos. High's ethnography is penetrating, and sometimes dark, as she describes not only the struggles for solidarity in a multiethnic state where ethnicity is something to be recognized and then overcome by Socialism but the realities of alcoholism, petty theft, and violence against women as well. This work follows on from her earlier monograph Fields of Desire: Poverty and Policy in Laos, which was based on research in a lowland Lao village.1The notion of solidarity is often dismissed as empty political rhetoric in a country where land grabbing for cash crops, social disruption from migration and resettlement, and Chinese and Vietnamese investment define the local political economic landscape for Lao people. But High engages head-on with the vernacular of socialist development as spoken in the village, asserting that “solidarity is the mood and aesthetics of everyday Socialism in Laos” (44). What she dubs the “metalanguage” (12) of contemporary Laos should be seen not as merely vernacular propaganda but rather as indexical of the truths that Kantu people juggle to create cultural meaning in their daily lives.A government relocation program split the Kantu community at the center of this book into two settlements that came to represent opposing extremes on a revolutionary spectrum—one village successful and modern, the other traditional and backward. High scrutinizes local narratives of how political ideology drives what people say and do as they participate in Lao socialism. She argues that New Kandon villagers’ efforts to create an ethnic Kantu Cultural Village—the official Lao designation of baan wadthanathan, a village that exemplifies the government's ideal of social transformation—must be understood in the Lao sense of culture, which includes “improvement, eclecticism, and the struggle to cultivate the very best, both old and new” (59). None of these associations sits comfortably with the Anglophone anthropological notion of culture, which remains fixated on identifications of difference and authenticity. The contestations described in this work are not abstract cultural representations but instead concrete, politically charged, and highly emotional.High's recounting of Kandon's struggles is heavily colored by the presence and narrative of Wiphat, her informant, guide, interlocutor, and companion. It is his interpretation and hopes for Kandon's unity, solidarity, and prosperity within Lao socialism that articulate the national metanarrative of village-level socialist struggle. He is at the center of numerous stories that are enlightening and entertaining but also at times awkward and painful. Amid the revolutionary idealism he performs, Wiphat ultimately implores High to tell the whole truth in her representation of Kandon.But High's story is not dominated by Wiphat's male voice and actions. The Kandon world is also vividly—often but not always subtly—narrated by women who entrust High with their experiences of domestic violence, painting a complex picture of desire and endurance that is inextricably intertwined with public expressions of village solidarity. The women of Kandon are weavers. This weaving has given the Kantu status in the local trading systems that extend into Vietnam, but it has also become a sign of their cultural contribution, and obligation, to the transformation of Kantu society. Women become bound to the image of Kantu weaving “tradition,” an important part of the successful “Cultural Village,” but they speak of the ambiguous bonds among themselves as they endure the daily dramas of family life. The witness of Kantu women brings out the uncomfortable dilemma of how three things that should have been eradicated from their prerevolutionary ethnic life—buffalo sacrifice to spirits, gender inequality, and arranged marriage—continue to exist in a situation of “necessity.” While these social realities diverge from government policy, Kandon people are reconciled to them as undesirable and embarrassing forces beyond their control that they must endure.In the most direct statement of villagers’ cultural hopes, people search for a balance between keeping sing thii dii ngaam (fine or desirable things) and getting rid of sing thii bo dii bo ngaam (undesirable things). With this simple dichotomy we can begin to unpack how solidarity is not just a political objective for these Lao villagers. In asserting that solidarity is also about pleasure, High briefly nods toward the Lao notion of muan (fun, enjoyable), which can include not only visiting and joking, but also the feel of working and building together. She suggests that “once solidarity is attained the mood should be fun” (44). I would suggest that this term is another key element of the linguistic ideology of local development that values muan more as a means of achieving solidarity.One inconvenient fact for the government is that the Kantu language is still spoken, and the speakers talk about their trials and tribulations in achieving solidarity in their own vernacular terms. More analysis of Kantu language narratives of dispute and negotiation would likely provide additional insights, complementing High's incisive analysis of the more legible Lao official register. Projectland has made an extremely important contribution to Lao, Southeast Asian, and Asian studies, asking us to question and unlearn our assumptions about the political-cultural landscapes of our research. High's book is also an accomplished example of reflexive ethnography that handles the sensitive, sensuous, and subtle in a way that respects the agency and humanity of the people she encounters

Ancient history · Development economics · Economics · Political science · Socioeconomics · Sociology · History · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies